Baseball Strike:

RAY RECCHI Lifestyle Columnist

We Had It Coming

If two thieves are fighting over your wallet, which one do you root for?

That, as I see it, is the choice we have in the imminent strike of Major League Baseball players.

What's the strike about? I'm not sure. Both sides have been trying to gain support and sympathy from the public by explaining their side of the money problem. But I have money problems of my own. I'm really not interested in how they split it up. It seems to me there should be enough to go around.

But here's the situation as I see it.

On one side are the greedy owners, who would pay Barry Bonds the minimum wage of $4.25 per hour if they could get away with it. On the other side are the greedy players, who think nothing of demanding more money for eight months' work than most of the rest of us will make in our lifetimes.

Caught in the middle, as always, are those of us who provide the millions for these jerks to fight over.

The easiest solution, it would seem, would be for fans to stop spending money on baseball, thereby teaching both sides a lesson. But we know that will not happen because it has not happened so many times before.

All talk, no action

Oh, we'll grouse and complain. People will write letters to editors decrying the strike and call in to radio talk shows voicing their displeasure. We'll bark a lot, but we won't bite. And when the strike is over, people will crowd back into the ballparks like so many mindless sheep.

People will continue to buy all manner of toys and clothing endorsed by professional teams and players. They will keep paying exorbitant sums to overpaid jocks to scribble their names on cards, pictures or baseballs.

How can owners and players treat us that way after all we've done for them? Why don't they have more respect for fans?

My theory is that it's because America's love affair with baseball has turned into an abusive relationship.

They kick us and we come back for more. They slap us around and we turn the other cheek. If we show signs of defecting to football, they apologize, tell us how much they care and promise it will never happen again.

And we forgive and forget. Until the next time this fat and happy bunch becomes fat and unhappy.

Guilty party has familiar face

It's no wonder owners and players treat fans with such disdain. Why should they have any respect for us when we obviously have so little respect for ourselves?

So if you're a baseball fan trying to figure out who's to blame for the decline of America's pastime, just take a gander in the nearest mirror.

If the priorities of baseball are screwed up, it's because of us. We're the ones who make owners and players feel indispensable.

Don't ask who told players that their ability to throw a ball 90 miles per hour or hit one 400 feet should be worth more money in one year than the average police officer makes in two lifetimes.

We are the ones who told them. After all, fans pay every dollar of those salaries.

What's more, the same guy who spends hundreds of dollars on season's tickets and hundreds more during the summer on parking, hot dogs, beer and memorabilia will walk into a voting booth in November and vote against a $20-per-year tax hike to raise the salaries of teachers or police officers. Or to build a prison or an art museum.

By demonstrating that the game is that important to us, we have given baseball owners and players carte blanche to treat us poorly.

If we insist on acting like jerks, that is, we shouldn't be surprised when people treat us like jerks.